Xhariep residents in the Free State have told  the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.that the current arrangement of merging small and poorer towns that have no economic activity, should be discontinued.

This emerged during the Independent Municipal Demarcation Authority (IMDA) Bill which is currently a subject of nationwide public consultation process by the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

The portfolio committee conducted public hearings on the Bill over the weekend in Edenburg, Free State where the residents suggested that the new demarcation body that the Bill seeks to create must establish smaller wards and municipalities that will be easy to manage for effective service delivery.

They said the current arrangement of vast municipalities and wards is hindering service delivery as most of these municipalities are struggling to deliver services to the people.

According to committee chairperson Fikile Xasa, residents proposed that in order to create economically viable municipalities, smaller and economically poor towns should be merged with bigger ones with vibrant economies.

The committee also heard that the process of changing municipal boundaries and delimitation of wards must run concurrently with Statistics South Africa’s census for better planning purposes by the government.

Xasa assured participants that all their views have been captured and will be considered when the committee deliberates on the Bill in Parliament.

“The Bill seeks to repeal and replace the Local Government: Municipal Demarcation Act, to align and update the legislation with current Demarcation Board practices, and to rename the Municipal Demarcation Board to the Independent Municipal Demarcation Authority,” said Xasa.

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A total of 18 people were arrested for public violence.

Members of Public Order Policing were summoned to Hennenman in the Free State to attend to the situation.

PHOMOLONG HENNENMAN IN FREE STATE IS BURNING….Lack of service delivery, no ambulance,closing of police station an high crime an drugs dealers.. pic.twitter.com/1zZzY59ryQ

— MODUPE MOHOJE (@ModupeMohoje) April 11, 2023

“The situation is still tense however SAPS members of the Public Order Policing and Crime Intelligence Unit are on the ground to maintain law and order,” said Captain Stephen Thakeng on Wednesday.

Thakeng said Phomolong Satellite Police Station is still open to serve residents with services needed.

Residents are advised to consult the relevant authority to reach a negotiated settlement rather than resorting to violence.

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The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) has accused the ANC of being complicit in the water crisis that has left many residents of Free State without a stable water supply.

While the heatwave has rapidly increased the evaporation rates, adding more pressure to the dams which supply the high demands of Free State residents, the FF Plus is adamant that the current situation has the ANC’s “incompetency” written all over it — especially in the case of the Mangaung Municipality.

The heatwave that has hit most parts of the country has had a devastating impact on the state of dam levels. In the Free State, the overall capacity of dam levels stood below 35%. As of Wednesday, 30 October, Free State dam levels read as follows:

Free State water crisis: The current state of dam levels as of Wednesday, 30 October:

Kalkfontein Dam (23,7%)
Rustfontein Dam (25,9%)
Groothoek Dam (30,2%)
Sterkfontein Dam (91,5%)
Gariep Dam (74,4%)
Krugersdrift Dam (78,6%)

In a bid to save water, the local government has ordered water restrictions in the metro.

However, the FF Plus says that all of this would have been avoided if the ANC-led metro had taken care of preventative water loss issues in 2018.

In a statement, the party’s Armand Cloete noted that water losses “caused by poor upkeep and leakages that are not repaired are the greatest contributing factor to the water shortage in the Free State.”

He further went on to state that, in the 2017/2018 financial year alone, the Mangaung Municipality wasted as much as 36-million litres of water per day due to preventable water losses.

“The municipalities under ANC control appear to be the greatest water wasters. If Ntombela and ANC municipalities do not take urgent action to address the poor maintenance and lack of expert officials in municipalities, Day Zero will become a reality in the Free State,” Cloete warned.

While the ANC certainly can do very little to influence the impact of climate change, Cloete noted that preventable wastage is something that rests in the hands of the governing party.

“The Free State may not lose water, even in normal rainy seasons, due to leakages and illegal connections. The Free State cannot afford to suffer due to the ANC’s crisis management any longer,” he noted.

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Eskom has denied that it will supply businesses in Harrismith directly with power as part of a new agreement.

The Rapport newspaper reported Sunday that the Harrismith Business Forum signed a contract with the utility to deliver power directly to the town’s 100 biggest power users.

Eskom said in a statement Tuesday that this is not the case, but will, in an unusual step however, directly collect payments from the businesses.

“No agreement was concluded with the Harrismith Business Chamber in isolation and Eskom did not side-line or bypass the Municipality in this process. In fact, the 100 customers will still be supplied by the Municipality.”

Municipalities collect electricity payments and are supposed to pay it to Eskom.

The Maluti-a-Phofung municipality in the Free State owes Eskom more than R4bn in unpaid electricity bills – the biggest outstanding municipal power account in the country.

The municipality has a monthly electricity bill of R180m, which was last paid years ago.

Across the country, municipalities now owe Eskom R25.1bn – and this has grown by R5.2bn since April.

Some rural municipalities are not paying Eskom the money they receive from businesses and households, who faithfully pay their power bills. Eskom cut power to these non-paying municipalities – affecting those who have been paying their bills too.

The decision to allow Eskom to collect payments directly was taken by a local consultative committee that was established – by court order – in 2018.

Representatives of the Harrismith Business Chamber, Eskom and the Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality all serve on the committee, which is chaired by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and the Department of Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

“One of the initiatives that the Committee agreed to assisting the Municipality with was to technically normalise the top 100 Large Power Users (LPU) accounts and also for Eskom to collect,” Eskom  said.

Together, the 100 biggest businesses in the town pay electricity bills of R20m a month. The businesses include Nestle, Shoprite Checkers, the plastic company Alpla and the carpet producer Nouwens.

Eskom says the municipality paid the full R2.9m bill to install new electricity meters at these businesses, denying the Rapport report that it was split between the municipality and the local businesses.

“It is therefore factually incorrect to say that Eskom will deliver power directly to the 100 biggest power users bypassing the Municipality completely. Only the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and the Courts can make such a decision,” said Eskom.

Additional reporting by Fin24

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